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 If a voice could pick you up in its smoky tendrals and carry you away to an ancient place, lost to our busy and distracted eyes…if a voice could shed light on the buried and unexposed corners of your soul…if a voice could awaken the magic you once believed in as a child - then it would be the voice of Loreena McKennitt that is falling upon your ears.
Melodic and shrouded in an air of mysticism, Loreena’s performance at the Calgary Folk Festival was profound to say the least. Using instruments such as the cello, harp, piano, and the hurdy gurdy, she is clearly not your typical singer-songwriter that one would find at your typical folk music festival.
It would be a tragic mistake to restrict her music with tidy little labels such as “Celtic” or “folk” or “world music,” since her talent and passion decidedly forfeits all boundaries. In a departure from most mainstream artists, Loreena not only uses vibrant imagery inspired by ancient Celtic rites and Turkish landscapes, but she also takes the words and wisdom of muses before her and sets them to haunting melodies, honouring the works and memories of Tennyson, Noyes and Shakespeare, just to name a few.
“It’s really led by imagery, and the imagery is assembled by a lot of travelling to do research.” Says Loreena, as we chat next to Calgary’s Bow River. “I’ve travelled to Turkey and Greece and Mongolia and China, Morocco as well as parts of Europe. When I’m travelling I often gather information like the light in the sky or the sound in the streets or the smell. This central imagery helps in terms of formulating a picture that I then go into the studio and try to paint, but instead of paint brushes I use instruments. For example, with a piece like “Gates of Istanbul” I want to set it in Turkey at a period of time and even at a certain time of the day. The music gets built from a visual image that becomes really integral to the process.”
Loreena’s soul-stirring influence lays not only in the music, but radiates from Loreena herself – from the humility and grace that simmers beneath every spoken word and action. If one is accustomed to the angst-ridden world of metal or the hedonistic world of cock-rock, then briefly basking in the dulcet tones of Loreena’s voice will come as a refreshing change.
“There are a lot of people who write or speak to me and tell me that they’ve used my music in some very significant times in their lives, and I think, wow, that’s pretty amazing, for me as a stranger, to find my way into people’s lives during such powerful and intimate moments is pretty special.“
Philosophy aside, Loreena’s performance at the Calgary Folk Festival was truly an uplifting, perhaps even a chilling experience. She is undeniably one of the few musicians who, instead of merely performing on stage, is simply living on stage – the difference being vast and staggering. Floating through favourites such as “The Mummers Dance” and “Dante’s Prayer,” Loreena granted the imploring crowd a positively captivating experience, both soothing and energizing synonymously.
“I would never have imagined that things would have been so successful in many ways,” She says with a smile. “ Successful not just in terms of units sold or money or anything, but also in terms of reaching people and touching them, that’s one of the most fascinating and humbling aspects of it all, but it speaks also to the medium of music.”
If you can imagine a realm where beauty is rooted in the earth and the voices of generations past still resonate on the wind, flowing through bardic songs and heroic stories. Then you will see the world from which Loreena comes, stepping out from an ancient Celtic text into our post-modern, worry-laden lives.
- Lindsay Thomas
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